“In the beginning, women in truth were the sun.
We were authentic human beings...”
— Hiratsuka Raicho, Bluestocking Magazine, 1911.
Kill Kimono is a short 16mm experimental film about three Japanese women in search of cultural identity between the clash of two cultures of the East and West. Based on a manifesto written in the first feminist paper to be published in Japan in the early 1900’s, the story intertwines the displacement of three women amidst the structures of tradition in a modern world. One woman swims all the way from Tokyo to New York City in one night to meet her new American husband. Another woman, unhappy with her Asian eyelids, seeks cosmetic surgery as a remedy for acceptance. And on one of the many rooftops in the city waits a woman tending a rock garden in meditation. Experimenting with language and poetic imagery, Kill Kimono is a film about the struggle of women discovering their authenticity as human beings.
Kill Kimono was Lisette Marie Flanary’s senior thesis film at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. It premiered at the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival in 1996 and was showcased at NYU’s First Run Film Festival where it received Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction awards. The film participated in Cinema Jove’s short film market in Valencia, Spain and also toured in Asian Cinevision’s 19th Annual Asian American Film Festival’s national tour in ten U.S. cities. The film was also shown at the Cinemateque of London’s Institute of Contemporary Art, the Breckenridge Festival of Film, MadCat Women’s Film Festival, and the Seattle Asian American Film Festival. Music from the film is available on composer Peter Scherer’s CD entitled CRONOLOGIA from Tzadik Records.
The film is available for viewing on ShortTV.com.
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